Schrodinger's Fox
by 36Tesseract
Summary: The 4th Hokage sealed half of the Kyuubi into Naruto & the other half into himself, before being consumed by the Death God. So our fox, much like Schrodinger's Cat, is half-dead/half-alive and therefore cannot die, and while he's in Naruto... neither can he. Plus, one half of the Kyuubi, can talk to the other half who con talk to the rest in the Death God's gut.
1. The Fall That Failed

**A Hokage, A Wife & Half a Nine tails**

* * *

 **The Fall That Failed**

 _For the Sake of Whispers._

* * *

 _~ Forenote ~_

Naruto has been training with Jiraiya, Toad Sage, Super Pervert, and the Sanin who trained the Yondaime, for almost a month preparing to face Neji in the Finals. However in order to succeed in summoning the Kyuubi's Chakra, Jiraiya has implemented a _Life or Death_ training method. With only four days left before the tournament, What will Naruto do!?

* * *

Falling. Cursing. Panicking. These were the things Naruto Uzumaki was currently doing.

The old toad hermit had promised a _life or death_ training method hadn't he? Getting tossed over a cliff wasn't what Naruto had in mind... but there wasn't anything else he could do except what he had been trying to do all month!

Focusing on his mind, on finding the demon fox inside him, Naruto finally managed to enter the seal in his mindscape.

He arrived in a large room with shadowed walls. The dominant feature of which was the single wall that appeared visible within the seal. The wall expanded forever on either side, However at the center was a Gate that made the village gate look like the gate to a mouse hole.

Each of the bars was easily bigger around than he was, and they continued upwards for what Naruto could only guess was ten or twenty floor levels. Not that he had seen a building that tall, But he was guessing anyway so that didn't matter.

Behind the bars of the seal, two massive eyes opened, illuminating the beast they belonged to. No matter how many times Naruto had imagined the fox, seeing it's size in person was amazing. Staring up at the fox's dripping teeth as it's mouth opened in a groggy yawn, the Genin stepped back.

" **So my jailer has arrived to visit me**." The thundering, yet calm voice of the demon shook Naruto out of his daze. Looking the monstrous creature directly in his eyes, Naruto prepared to demand Rent.

Before he had opened his mouth, the fox twitched and looked to one side. The ear on that side twisted around, listening for something. The demon's muttering wasn't understandable even if Naruto could feel it vibrating in his bones.

Was the fox going loony or something?

0o0o0

In the belly of the death god, another fox had awakened. His movements as he stirred, alarmed the other two occupants of the Death God's gut.

"Kyu-Ojii, Are you waking up?" The feminine voice of the demon's previous host called out cautiously as she approached the golden bars of the Shiki Fuin. Last time they had woke the giant when it wanted to continue sleeping, he had sulked for months. Glaring at them with a small amount of killing intent.

Of course, while the amount of the beast's killing intent was relatively small compared to what the beast was capable of, for the two shinobi, it had been high on the scale of their tolerance.

Even still, the worst part of the focused intent directed at them was the fact that it had been consistent and perpetual throughout those months. They had to live with it every single moment until it faded away as the demon fell asleep once more.

The fox's eyes opened slowly as he yawned… One of them shifted to bring the redhead in to view.

The moment the yawn ended, the dark red face of the beast lowered down to meet her. "It seems your son has finally made it to the seal." The Kyuubi spoke gently.

"Yaataa!" Kushina shouted in excitement. It had been almost a month since the fox returned to his slumber. They hadn't heard anything about Naruto since.

The demon only had peripheral knowledge about the living world, gleaned from the few mutterings of his other half. It had taken years before the dark fox had been willing to share even those with them.

For the most part, it was complaints about the boy's diet or the cold early on. But there had been several times since they got the dark fox talking, that the demon's other half had been forced to heal the boy from major injuries.

Then they seemed to stop.

There had only been two truly concerning events in the last couple years. One was less than a month ago, and the previous one was several. Both times the demon on the other side had been more active than since the early days before the dark fox began telling them what was happening. With the exception of a few isolated events.

"Have you heard why he is in the seal?" The blonde stood beside his wife in front of the gate separating them from the demon. Wrapping his arm around her, they waited anxiously for any news of their son.

"To call my other half crazy apparently."

0o0o0

"Oii! Fox! I'm talking to you!" Naruto had tried getting the demon's attention but the bright red mountain of fur continued to look for an imaginary sound.

Finally satisfied that there wasn't anyone else talking to him, the fox turned its gaze towards the child shouting at him from the other side of his cage. "What do you want, you annoying little insect?"

"I'm here to collect rent from your fuzzy ass!"

" **Rent**?" The fox asked spitefully. The pathetic little brat was making demands!? While not paying much attention to it, the demon responded with venom.

The argument that followed reduced itself into childish name calling in only moments. Naruto seemed to be winning as he had more varied insults while the massive fox simply got angrier.

Between snarling at the tiny human and shifting his ears to figure out where that sound was coming from, the fox became frustrated enough to finally lose it's temper. He had been trying to locate that noise for the last decade but it always seemed to elude him, and now when his jailer finally arrived it became more noticeable than ever!

Slashing his claws against the bars of the cage the demon roared at Naruto. " _ **That's enough!**_ **Be SILENT! I'm not giving you** _ **ANY**_ **of my chakra after this! Now leave!** "

The Genin stared in shock at the beast, thinking back through the names he had called him and wondering which of them had hurt the demon's feelings.

Then he realized he was _still falling!_

"Oii, Fox I'm sorry for hurting your feelings, but I just got thrown off a cliff! If you don't help out _we'll both die!_ "

" **No. You just have to point your legs down first, you'll live! And I can** _ **keep**_ **you alive until your body heals.** " The fox turned away from him again, listening for whatever it was.

Naruto left the seal in a panic. It seemed this _life or death_ training wasn't going to work.

0o0o0

Counting the seconds down, Jiraiya realized that Naruto was almost to the point where the Toad Sage couldn't catch up to him before the boy hit the bottom. Not taking any chances, the Sanin dived off the cliff. Using his chakra to propel him much faster than free-falling would, Jiraiya searched the darkness beneath him for his godson.

Seeing the panicking boy as a growing speck ahead of him, the Sage launched himself forward again

"Kuuuuuso! Kitsune-temeee!"

Well at least it sounded like the boy managed to meet the fox. The Toad Sage estimated his distance was close enough and used one of the few Gama-jutsu he could use without summoning Sage chakra into his body.

His tongue lashed out like a whip, catching the back of the boy's orange jacket and twisting around the rearmost fabric for a good hold. Then it recoiled yanking the small Genin back towards him. Hopefully by grabbing him like this, with the snap of inertia spread through his jacket, he wouldn't break any of the boy's ribs.

Jiraiya began making hand signs for a summons. But before he had finished it he felt his tongue go slack as the sound of ripping threads reached his ears. The boy's jacket tore right off him.

Releasing the ruined fabric, the Sage flipped his body around and brought the summon's above him. Only using a small amount of what he had gathered, the Sage summoned a toad about the size of a horse and used it as a springboard to send himself at the falling kid once again.

This time he whipped his tongue out to snatch the boy's ankle instead.

0o0o0

Jiraiya paced as he considered this new problem. The boy was able to contact the fox, however the fox clearly didn't want to cooperate.

Naruto only had three days, after today, before he would fight the Hyuuga boy. That meant the Sanin needed to teach him something he could learn quick.

The aged shinobi had plenty of things that might work, but most of them would need more than three days. However… If he used _that_ to speed up the process he might have just enough time to teach Naruto how to use a certain jutsu. And while he was at it, he might as well help Naruto figure out the _real_ advantage behind the chakra walking skills.

With a plan of action chosen, Jiraiya turned to the brat sitting on the grass trying his damnedest to meditate.

"Oi, Naruto… After a lot of thought… I have decided that you need to try working on something different before you run out of time."

"Nani!?" Naruto jumped from his position on the ground and stormed up to grab the Sanin's vest. "You mean this whole month I've wasted, training with you, was for nothing!"

"Not at all!" The man put his hands up as if to hold Naruto off. "You made a lot of progress by contacting the Kyuubi, but for now, that simply isn't going to be ready in time."

Removing Naruto's hands from his vest, the Sanin took a step back and created a shadow clone.

"Create a single shadow clone for me kid." The clone addressed him.

Not having any other choice with the match looming so close, Naruto did as he was told. Sending a small glare at the real Toad Sage as he did.

The pervert's clone put a hand on Naruto's clone's shoulder and then they both vanished.

"Alright, while they are doing their own thing, we are going to get you ready to face your opponent. The first thing we need to do is make you fast enough to dodge the Jyuuken pokes that the boy uses."

As the Sanin spoke he pulled out a small scroll and unrolled a section of it on the ground.

"If his fingers touch you at any point of your body, he can shut your chakra down. Even with as much as _you_ have, you won't be able to use it."

From the scroll he unsealed several pieces of split firewood. A few quick smacks and the wood separated into thin flat strips of wood about three centimeters wide and of several different lengths.

He had two pieces of firewood left intact and one that had only been split in short halves. Picking the short blocks of wood up, he tossed them at Naruto.

"Okay brat make a pair of fists and use your chakra to hold those on the front of them. Then walk over here without dropping them."

It took Naruto a few tries to figure out how to attach them onto his fists while still holding them and in the end he simply put them in his armpits so he could make the fists. With his closed knuckles attached to the blocks of wood, he let go of them with his arms and slowly brought them out in front of him.

It wasn't so hard to do. It was the same thing as tree walking after all. So he walked forwards and as the Sanin instructed next. He stepped onto the flat blocks of intact firewood. With the cut, flat sides down, and his feet on the curved sides, still covered in bark, Naruto tried to walk.

His goal was to lift the firewood with his foot and not stay anchored to the ground. At the same time he couldn't drop the short blocks on his fists. It wasn't as hard as water walking was, but it still took him a while to get the hang of it.

Once he could walk at a steady pace without dropping any of the chunks of wood attached to him, the Toad Sage took two of the longer strips of wood and placed them on his shins.

This continued the rest of the morning. Once he was able to move easily with the attached wood, the pervert added more. Well into the afternoon, Naruto had been covered almost head to toe in the strips of kindling. There were pieces attached to almost every muscle. Each of his abs and side muscles, two on each side of his chest, several on different parts of his arms and legs. And Naruto had lost count of the ones on his back.

While he was certain his chakra control had increased drastically, he still didn't see the point to this. All the Sanin would say is that they would finish when he had one on each external muscle.

Finally, the Sage pulled two dice out of his sleeve, and put them on the bottom sides of Naruto's eyebrows. He held them there just above his eyelids.

"Okay Naruto we are almost done with the first stage of this training. Now all you have to do is run through your taijutsu without dropping any of these."

0o0o0

"Okay boy, we're here." The clone wasn't happy about the vanishing thing they did. But he was certainly hoping the man would teach it to the boss. Just the thought of it got him excited for his original.

"Okay what are we going to do… are we gonna ambush the boss or are you going to grill me for information! I know where he keeps his shinobi supplies if you want to set up a—"

"As surprised as I am about how quickly you would self yourself out, I had something else in mind." Interrupting the eager clone, Jiraiya brought out a few tiny pieces of paper. Handing one of them to the clone he had the boy sit down.

"You're just going to channel chakra into this and then we are going to teach you how to manipulate elemental chakra."

Complying a lot faster than the original would have, the clone split the piece of paper in half.

"What does this mean?" The clone held the two halves out to the Sanin's clone.

"Well that means you are a wind type, however we are going to be learning a jutsu from the fire style, so we need to teach you how to convert your chakra into a different element than your affinity."

Seeing the clone pout, the Sanin made a promise the boy wouldn't remember. "I tell you what we'll do. If you can master this by the end of the night, then after the finals are over my original will teach yours how to use your wind affinity."

"You're on!" The clone shouted.

Pulling out a belt strap the Sanin clone began rubbing the strap on a fist sized rock he had picked up just for this explanation.

When he was done he had the clone put it's hand on the rock. "Its warm."

"That's exactly right. The friction of the strap rubbing on the rock caused it to heat up. What you are going to do is picture your chakra rubbing together like your hands do when you get cold. This will cause it to heat up and then you channel that into the paper."

To emphasize his point the Sanin did exactly that, rubbing his hands together over a leaf which turned into ashes.

It took the young clone most of the morning to finally get it down and once he had, the Sanin gave him a leaf to work on instead. Okay you have done great! Now, I have a shortcut for you to picture instead of the last image. Pulling out another strap, the Sanin's clone created a clone of it's own. The two of them looped their straps and began pulling them back and forth over each other.

When Naruto felt one of these straps, they were almost hot enough to dispel him. Instead of thinking about the rock heating up, he had to rub his chakra against itself in order to create flame.

0o0o0

Through the last couple hours, the original boy had been working on his taijutsu, the Sanin had made several corrections and made him repeat them quite a few times. As he did this, Naruto's goal was to not drop any of the attached wood. However that had been at a slow and steady pace.

Once Naruto was able to move through all of his kata without dropping anything, the Sanin had him start dodging a rubber ball. Dodging the ball was more of a quick paced task, even if Ero-sensei was only tossing the ball at him lazily.

He tossed it at him slowly and Naruto had to move and throw it back. Over the next hour or so the Sanin began tossing it faster and faster. Naruto began dropping wood and they had to start over.

It was getting dark when the Sanin finally began throwing the ball like he meant it. Each time it hit Naruto, the boy would yelp, but he kept the wood strips attached.

Sometime well into the night the ball finally made it's mark and knocked Naruto out cold.

0o0o0

The leaf was much harder than the paper had been. For one, the paper was meant to absorb clean chakra and show what trait it possessed. When channeling a type intentionally, the paper would pull that type out on it's own.

There was also the fact that the leaf, being a leaf picked off a tree, was still kind of wet.

He was able to almost dry it out, after a while. The Sanin told him the very least he needed was to singe the edges.

When he finally asked why, the Sanin created a small jutsu in his hand, which he called the Burning Palm Kunai. It was a small jutsu that formed when you curled your fingers around, like an open circle, and air was pulled in from the thumb side and fire came out the back.

The Sanin explained that depending on the quality of the chakra conversion, it could be red, yellow or even blue. And the Uchiha clan even had some jutsu able to create white and black flames.

When Naruto tried the jutsu all that happened was a warm blast of air the was barely even visible.

The Sanin said he needed to be able to create actual flame with that jutsu before the one he had in mind would work. And that meant Naruto had to increase the quality of his chakra conversion until he could burn the leaf.

The clone worked feverishly into the night and was able to fully dry the leaf out and even got it to start crumbing. But it didn't burn.

The clone never even noticed the sleeping genjutsu placed on him by the Hokage. He was dispelled shortly after Naruto had been knocked out and neither of them would remember any of what happened.

"He is too young to know the secret of that jutsu yet." The Hokage scolded his last remaining student

"Hence the sleeping dismissal I asked you to provide." Jiraiya replied with a smug grin as he recalled the memories of his own clone being dispelled. "He won't remember the training, but it'll help him when he begins on the jutsu I'm going to teach him."

"I assume this means he failed to use _it_?"

"Yeah it does. He was able to meet _it_ , but the fox was willing to risk death to spite him. I think the beast might be harder to manage than he is able right now. It would probably be best to shelf the training until he has a year or so more experience under his belt."

The aged shinobi agreed. "And what do you think his chances are without the benefit the beast would give him against his opponent?"

"I think he still has a good chance of winning." Picking up the boy Jiraiya began towards Naruto's apartment. "He managed to get most of the wood strips to stick while he moves quickly. It's only a matter of time before he figures it out."

0o0o0

In the recesses of the death god's gut two shinobi and a beast were arguing.

The beast didn't know why his other half had refused to help Naruto and didn't care since it had turned out okay in the end. But that wasn't the point. Kushina and Minato wanted him to boss his other half around as if he had any kind of control over what the other fox did.

If the living Kyuubi didn't want to heal Naruto, the dark fox didn't think he should have to tell him to.

And his two companions for the last decade and change, disagreed.

0o0o0

Within the seal on Naruto's belly, the Kyuubi had nearly had enough listening to this other voice. He had searched for years trying to find it and now it was getting louder. The fox thought he could make out some of the words spoken, but they didn't seem to fit together.

Except for the message to heal his host. The fox was barely able to cobble that out.

Curious to see what would happen if he did as the voice asked, the Kyuubi saw no real harm in healing the baka either way. And at least this was different than trying to ignore the whispers.

0o0o0

Naruto woke bright and early, ready for more training. He didn't seem to be sore at all from the training yesterday.

Arriving at the field behind the hot springs the boy was surprised to see that Ero-Sanin had set up a small tent and camped there.

The elder shinobi crawled out of his tent the moment Naruto got to the field and immediately vanished in a puff of smoke. Along with everything he'd set up.

Naruto only had to wait a few more minutes before the Original Sanin arrived fresh and awake. "Baka… Setting up a tent because the ground was uncomfortable." Shaking his head at his clone's actions, the Toad Sage turned to Naruto and grinned. "Okay Naruto, today I want you to make ten clones."

As the Toad Sage created his clone, ten of Naruto's popped into existence.

Naruto didn't know what his clone had done last time but whatever it was must not have been enough if it need ten of them to do it today.

Gathering the strips of wood that had been stacked by the tent last night, Naruto began attaching them all to the parts of his body they had been on the day before.

It seemed so much easier to do this time. Yesterday had taken so long before he could even hold them all. He was ready to dodge that rubber ball.

"Alright kid, I have a question for you… Is this Neji brat going to be throwing a rubber ball at you?"

Well that wasn't what Naruto had been expecting. Answering that the Hyuuga would be using his fingers resulted in the Sanin's tongue shooting out of his mouth, with a marker wrapped in it. The dot on Naruto's forehead protector explained everything to Naruto.

"That was a Gama-jutsu I use for various purposes. I learned it from one of the toad clan members I frequently summon."

Nodding in awe at the thought of learning toad jutsu, Naruto payed attention.

"In order to get you moving at a high enough speed while getting you used to dodging something the size of the Hyuuga boy's fingers, I will be using this instead of the ball today."

They started off slow, but the Sanin's tongue was much harder for Naruto to anticipate because he couldn't see where it was aiming until it shot out at him.

After a while the Sanin dropped the marker and began actually hitting him with the jutsu. It didn't feel like a normal tongue, but when Naruto got a good look at it, he saw that the tip of it had hardened and grown spikes, like a small club.

The hits could bruise and more often than not, drew blood. Naruto continued to dodge as fast as he could without dropping the strips of wood attached all over his body. The two of them did this all day, until Naruto didn't drop them even when hit hard enough to send him flying.

While Naruto didn't realize it, as Jiraiya watched, the Genin was visibly managing to correct his taijutsu too. The corrections the Sanin had made the previous day had been taking hold slowly, however every time the boy was hit, he would adjust his footing or stance without noticing what he was doing.

So the Sanin targeted the openings he saw at a slow speed, and kept it up until Naruto's movements were flowing naturally the way they should. By the time the Toad Sage finally knocked Naruto out that night, the boy's body was covered in bruises and blood.

0o0o0

The Kyuubi had tried doing what the voice was whispering, but it didn't get him anywhere. The very next day the boy was beaten twenty times worse. However the fox had found out that he could get the voice to speak back when he talked about the outside world.

It was still too muffled to understand but the voice was getting clearer. And so he talked. Explaining the progress the brat had made and the wounds he took to make it.

Finally the Kyuubi was able to make out what sounded like the voice calling him an idiot for not healing the boy as he trained.

Not sure what else to do. The fox went along with this voice. Where ever it was coming from, might be a way out of this accursed prison… It might also just be insanity… But it was less annoying and at least it wasn't boring yet.

0o0o0

Jiraiya was surprised when Naruto arrived without a single mark on him. Not only those from the marker that had been washed off, but all the bruises and broken skin had healed literally overnight!

They started out slow again. Sending the ten clones away before attaching the wood and dodging for about half an hour.

The gaki had only gotten a bit faster aside from the correction in his stance and footing. But those had done wonders on his movement on their own. Now it was time for the boy to learn the whole point of this training.

So the Toad Sage was much harder on Naruto and the Genin improved that much faster. It seemed he was actively healing as they trained. An open wound on his calf sealed up in only minutes. The bruise on his wrist was gone in less than that. Every wound inflicted on the boy was beginning to heal.

Then, midway through the morning, Naruto's speed suddenly jumped. He was at least three times as fast as before.

The Toad Sage began whipping at him with an equal speed increase and the boy only got faster.

It seemed he had figured it out. As Naruto was moving, he was channeling his chakra to all the areas the Sanin placed a strip of wood on at the same time. This in itself was a great mark of control. But the true purpose was that his chakra was in the right areas to be channeled directly into the muscles. Once he learned to focus his chakra into each thread instead of just along each limb, his speed jumped.

Now he was getting the hang of it. The Sanin needed to speed up every couple of shots just to be able to keep hitting the boy.

Then as he was aiming for the brat's ear, Naruto ducked and reached up, catching his tongue in his hand! With his feet anchored to the ground, the recoil wasn't able to pull back as it was meant to, and the Sanin gagged.

"I get it already ero-sensei." Naruto spoke in a hushed whisper with his face staring at the his feet. Then all of the strips of wood covering his body dropped to the ground.

"Eet Go ah meh tugg, Bwat! That hursth!" Jiraiya managed to get out around his extended apendage.

The boy looked up, staring directly into his eyes. "Go faster."

Naruto spoke with such a heavy determination. Letting go of the Sanin's tongue, Naruto leapt back and to stance.

Not one to refuse such a well made challenge, Jiraiya complied.

He increased his speed by leaps, but also began hitting like he meant it. The boy only got faster until finally, he was missing again. Each time his tongue hit something else, it shattered. He smashed the fence of the hot springs and put marks all over the ground, he even felled a tree!

Soon Naruto began making his way towards the Sanin and then he charged.

He was easily dodging the Toad Sage's tongue as he came closer and closer.

So Jiraiya began moving too.

It wasn't long before Naruto was almost able to reach the Sanin. Not that the man was moving anywhere near his real speed. But he had to at least move as fast as he could without chakra. And soon, he even began using chakra too.

Then Naruto pulled a move out of his ass that the Sanin felt like an idiot for not expecting. Naruto charged right at him and took a hit, but behind him a clone had formed and he pulled the clone over his head, launching it at the Sanin.

Then, as Jiraiya whipped the clone, Naruto jumped over them both, creating another clone to spring off of, and almost landing at hit square in the Hermit's face!

He began using his clones en mass, coming at the Sage from all angles and from more than one at a time.

By the time Naruto's efforts began to drop off and the boy got hit hard enough to knock him out, he was moving far past the speed the Sanin had expected.

Looking him over to make sure his final hit hadn't damaged him too badly, Jiraiya breathed a sigh of exhaustion.

He had kept up with Naruto all day long at a pace he could have easily managed, but maintaining it had become difficult. Naruto didn't even realize that forcing his body to move at those speeds had torn almost all of his muscles.

Not that it made much difference with the fox healing him the way he was. The Sage doubted there would be any mark left on the boy by morning.

0o0o0

They only had one day left. Thank Kami Naruto had figured out how to use his chakra yesterday. Now it was time to make the boy dangerous…

The Sanin was sure he would catch hell for this, But it wasn't like he had much else he could teach Naruto in such as short time. At least, nothing that would make the amount of difference this would.

Sitting Naruto down, he began a fourth time, explaining how to light the leaf on fire. The last two days he had taught ten of Naruto's clones how to light the leaf, and it had payed off. Yesterday they had been able to dry the thing out fresh in only an hour and then they even managed to burn it's edges. Now to make sure the training had carried over.

Showing Naruto what he was doing, the Sanin held a leaf up between two fingers and it turned into ashes in the count of two.

All Naruto had to do was burn the leaf a little. All he had to do was get the edges to turn black. After a brief explanation, the image he was focusing on came clearly to his mind. Focusing his chakra as he was told, he channeled it through the leaf. It only took him half an hour to get the edges of the leaf to burn and he didn't even dry the leaf out as he did it.

Not realizing that his clones had already managed it the day before, Naruto jumped up in a joyful cheer of triumph.

"Okay, Now that you managed that, I have one last thing to show you, but we have to go to an actual training ground for this." The Sanin told him.

Naruto was ready. "Sweet! What are we going to do!?"

"I'm going to show you an actual fire style jutsu that I think you're going to _love_."

0o0o0

The day of the finals finally began. He was still missing his jacket, but he would make do without it. Naruto was as ready as he could be. But more than that, he was excited as hell! He had wanted to go look at the train grounds at the academy to remember how hard he had worked, but on his way there he was intercepted by the Pervert himself.

"Look kid I didn't go through all that trouble to get you ready just for you to get lost!" The jerk said as he dragged Naruto the other way.

Just before they got to the entrance of the arena, the man let go and turned him around. "Hey, I just wanted to say that I am sorry for that whole pushing you off a cliff thing…" As the Sanin rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, the other hand reached into a pack hanging on the Sanin's belt.

What he pulled from the pack was a new orange jacket. It looked exactly like his old one, but it felt a little thicker. It was definitely made from something else.

"Since I kinda ripped your other one and dropped it… This one is better anyway. It's got reinforced everything and it's made of shinobi fabrics instead of civilian."

Naruto took the jacket and put it on with care.

"Look, Win or lose, I think you're going to do great out there. You just have to give it your all, and most importantly, don't forget what you're fight for! Don't forget what this kid did to that girl and your oath to do something about it." With those last words of encouragement the old shinobi turned Naruto again and gave him a slight push before leaping up to the wall of the arena and going over its roof.

0o0o0

As Naruto stood in the arena with the rest of them, his mind was racing. How did the pervy Sage even know about that? The image of Hinata lying on the floor at the preliminaries appeared in his mind. He clearly felt the rage of what Neji had done.

He only noticed they were about to begin when the Hokage began speaking. Looking around he realized that Sasuke still hadn't arrived.

At the end of the Hokage's speech their proctor held up the match list. One of the names was gone. Another look around and Naruto remembered who it was. The guy that fought Chouji was missing.

With everyone else leaving, Naruto took his stance across the arena from Neji.

"Got anything to say to me?" The arrogant jerk smirked.

Holding his fist out, Naruto replied coolly, "Just what I said last time"

The Hyuuga grinned and began to chuckle. "All the better for me! I can't wait to see the look of despair on your face when you realize that stupid vow of yours is impossible to keep!"

At the same time, the Hyuuga activated his doujutsu and began to think. Naruto was standing much firmer than before, his body language was surer and more confident.

"Yeah, well then go ahead and use that _backagain_ vision you got and just watch me keep it!" Naruto challenged. As he says this, he began channeling chakra into his muscles. All the chakra he could.

So much chakra was moving through him that his new jacket and his pants rippled. The ground around his feet began to shake as his chakra swirled around him, dust blew up into the air cycling along the chakra.

In the stands many of the audience gasped. Lee, whose crutch was across his lap turned to his sensei.

"No Lee, he isn't using the gates."

Tenten too leaned forward, intently watching as the wind blew around Naruto. Others in the stands began to murmur. Many of the older shinobi were surprised to say the least. Sitting with Hinata, Kiba smirked at the reactions of the shinobi next to them. He hadn't expected to lose his match either.

In the arena, Neji saw the sheer amount of chakra Naruto was using. He wasn't sure what he was seeing was even possible. Stepping back a few paces the Hyuuga caught the incoming kunai and used it to deflect the next two.

"It doesn't matter how much chakra you force into yourself!" He called out "You will lose here!"

Naruto charged, creating a clone above him as he closed in and threw it at the Hyuuga too.

The clone was just above Neji, but before it landed Neji poked it in the stomach, thinking it would dispel. Instead the clone began to glow with just enough time for Neji to throw himself backwards. He twisted as he fell, forcing his chakra between him and the explosion.

Regaining his balance, Neji completed the spin of his ace technique. The dome of chakra pushed the blast away from him.

Naruto sent another two clones at him. This time Neji went on the defensive. Blocking and redirecting the smaller boy's attacks without activating the explosive quickly became a struggle. Naruto was faster than he had been before. Far faster than Neji had ever even thought him capable of.

His movements were almost random and his speed continued to increase as they fought.

With only two of them attacking, Neji was barely keeping ahead of them.

All around the battle, people had erupted into stunned chatter. Even the Hyuuga clan head and his youngest daughter spoke with a hushed surprise. Neji had managed to recreate one of the Jutsu reserved for the main house members on his own!

While the rest of them were surprised at the kaiten, they were even more surprised that not only could Naruto create solid clones, which was an A-ranked jutsu, He was also able to make them explode! Compared to that, his extreme increase in speed was overlooked by all but the rookie Genin who knew him.

With the two shadow clones getting so close to Neji, the Hyuuga knew he only had one option and used a pair of shuriken to wound them from a distance.

"Ha! And here I thought close combat was your specialty!" Naruto called out from where he was.

Neji turned to him and took stance again. Solid clone was supposed to be a Jonin level skill. If he was right about it then Naruto would run out of chakra if he made more than a few of them.

"Do you think making a pair of clones is going to defeat me? Nothing times nothing is still nothing!"

The blonde simply smirked at him and created more of them.

These ones were different though. Unlike the last few, Naruto had distributed his chakra evenly among these ones. "I guess you realized it was a bad idea to burst one of my clones!"

"Go ahead and hide all you want! It won't help you win!"

This time Neji attacked. He charged in at the clones weaving through them swiftly enough that he was able to pass by and dispel a clone without remaining in it's blast area.

The he saw him, the _real_ Naruto had step back out of the fight. Rushing through the other clones without even trying to hit them Neji reached Naruto and jammed his fingers into the smaller boy's chest. Just in front of his heart.

He only barely managed to escape the blast when the wounded clone exploded.

"Did you think I was afraid of you or something!?" One of the Naruto's called out. "You thought I wouldn't come fight you myself!" Continued another.

Three more of them attacked, two head on and one from above, Neji tried to dispel the two coming at him from the ground first, and intended to dodge the third, but his hand was grabbed by the boy on the left! The real Naruto had been in the attack! The right clone burst without an explosion, as the one falling in, smashed his fist into Neji's blocking arm. Neji tried to strike back at Naruto, but the blonde substituted with another clone who dispelled on it's own. The blast threw Neji to the ground.

The flames created hadn't been hot enough to do much damage, but even as light as they were, the burns covered his who left side. Even his hair had been burned.

He knew he had only one way to end this. He had to use _that_. But first he needed to get rid of the clones in his way. So focusing most of his chakra into his right hand, the Hyuuga genius condensed it and compressed it into a plainly visible rope of chakra.

Finally standing again, Neji spun on heel and swung his right arm out in a slash. The thin whip of chakra passed into all the clones around him. All but the real Naruto dispelled in a combination of explosions and dispersal smoke.

"You have lost! You are within range of my divination." Neji spoke in triumph as he took stance for the Eight Trigrams Sixty-four palm technique. He moved in and missed the first two strikes as Naruto dodged out of the way.

Twisting, he continued to sending strike after strike at the blonde. Several of them hit, but even when hit Naruto wasn't phased by the strike as Neji had expected. A good solid strike from his jyuken should have sent the boy to the dirt but Naruto moved as if he had barely been touched.

Neji counted out the strikes until all of Naruto's Primary Tenketsu would have been hit. Out of the sixty-four he had managed to only hit forty-seven. His last strike being enough to send Naruto to the ground.

"You should be feeling it now. The realization that you can't win." Neji strode towards Naruto, calmly basking in his victory.

"Shut up! I can still fight!" Naruto pushed himself to his knees and then further to one foot.

"I have sealed off most of your Tenketsu. My next attack with seal the rest of them." While Neji said it, Naruto stood, glaring at him.

It was hard but Naruto was barely able to make a clone before Neji struck again. Ignoring the clone Neji slammed into Naruto with a vengeance. This time Naruto wasn't able to dodge nearly as many of them as he had last time. Each strike felt like a knife going into his chakra itself.

The clone simply fell to the ground and struggled to move away from the battle.

Once more Neji saw failure when he sent Naruto to the ground. He had missed two of Naruto chakra points even though he had only been aiming for seventeen of them.

As he marched towards Naruto, ready to finish the job, Neji saw a swelling of chakra from one of the beaten Genin's chakra points.

Naruto was forming another Shadow Clone!

The chakra forming the jutsu converged right in front of him and before it formed all the way, it decompressed in an explosion that only Neji's preemptive leap to the side saved him from.

"How did you create that!"

"I'm guessing you didn't seal off all of my _tent-kitsu._ At least one of them is still able to make chakra. If you want to beat me you're gonna have to kill me!"

Naruto wasn't even using hand seals as he created another explosion.

As Neji dodged, Naruto pushed himself back up. Standing and glaring at the older boy, Naruto called out a defiant challenge.

One that Neji responded to with an admission that he had impressed the Hyuuga. "However," Neji continued "If this fight continues then I will actually _have_ to kill you. While I'm willing to accept the task, this is not a life or death match. You may still withdraw. I have nothing against you personally and I am certain you will become a chunin next time."

"Yeah well I got something personal against you! I made a vow to kick your ass for Hinata's sake and I'm not giving up until you pay for what you did to her!"

Another explosion, this one almost twice the size of the last two, appeared.

Neji easily avoided it. Listening intently as Naruto ranted about how wrong he had treated his pathetic little cousin.

If Naruto wanted to know why he treated her like that, perhaps the audience would like to hear it as well.

And so he told him. The pause in Naruto's explosions was long enough for him to recover some of his lost chakra. More than enough to end this. When he had finished explaining the cruel fate of his father. Naruto remained silent.

Neji moved to strike, but was forced to dodge as three more explosions formed around him. Only the Kaiten saved him from being consumed by the blasts.

"If there is a way to break that fate of yours I'll find it! Right after I become Hokage! But right now… Right now I'm going to kick your ass! You may have had a shitty hand from the start, but that doesn't give you the right to treat Hinata like that! You don't get to decide other people's fates!"

Again Neji was surrounded by the explosions, quickly forming the kaiten he pushed them away with his chakra, only for Naruto to start gathering his chakra _inside_ the protective shield of the Kaiten. Neji had no choice but to abandon his rotation and throw himself clear of the forming blast.

In that moment, Naruto traded places with the clone that had began digging when Neji's sight was blocked by the explosive clones. As Neji got back to his feet he saw Naruto running towards him. He was about to move to meet the blonde head on, activating his byakugan he stopped.

This Naruto only had forty-seven of his chakra points closed! Looking around, Neji couldn't find the original, then the ground beneath him broke as two hands grabbed him from below.

The clone had reached Neji and swung its fist up into his gut. This was followed by a kick to the face hard enough to break him loose from the original's grip. As the Hyuuga was airborne the assaulting clone appeared above him, creating it's own clone to kick off of, down towards the cresting Hyuuga, punching him into the ground and bursting.

As Naruto climbed out of his hole, Neji turned his head to look at the rising Genin "How…? Why do you keep getting up with your tenketsu closed?"

"Because every one called me a failure!" Naruto answered him with a vicious snarl. "I failed to graduate three times because of a single Jutsu that was always on the test. My clones were pathetic. But I didn't give up. I kept trying, because there is no shortcut to real strength. That is only created from hard work, when you are trying to protect the person you love! You have to give it everything you have! Life or death! Not just one tent-kitsu or another. That is the will of fire!"

0o0o0

From within the Boy's gut the Kyuubi couldn't finish relaying the words of his host to the still unidentified sounds of his cage.

Naruto actually meant those words.

It seemed he was something interesting after all. The fox was willing to admit he made a good speech. So… complying once more to the muffled demands of the voice in his cage, the fox pushed his chakra out in a short burst.

Not much, but enough to undo the Hyuuga brats handiwork.

0o0o0

The flare of red chakra that passed through Naruto, illuminated him as if _he_ were made of the bright red flames like his explosive clones.

And that was when Neji saw that it unlocked all of his sealed tenketsu.

"You could have unlocked them whenever you wanted, couldn't you?" He asked. Realizing that if this red chakra was able to do that, Naruto had been holding back this whole time. He could have used that red chakra at any point in the match and he would have been that much stronger.

The last thoughts Neji had as he faded into unconsciousness were that he had been a fool.

0o0o0

The match was over. The Hokage stood and the crowed that had been in murmur over the results hushed in a deafening silence.

" _That_ … was an impressive speach young Genin and an even more impressive battle. I hereby make my _first_ nomination for the Chunin promotion." Turning his hand out in a offering gesture, as if the old man was presenting the boy to the crowd, the Hokage spoke much louder. "Uzumaki Naruto!"

As the Hokage began sitting, the crowds all stood and began roaring their cheers!

* * *

 _~ Note ~_

I know not a lot has changed from the original plot yet, however it will take some time to develop. This is the pilot chapter and as such I leave it up to you all to review and let me know if I should follow through with this story.

Any questions you have are welcome, and I will update this _~ Note ~_ with the answers when I upload chapter two.

* * *

 **Most items in all my Naruto fan-fictions will be based off of T8: Retroversion's timeline. Many of these details will be universal across them all.**

Meaning any mission or OC, or other major details will be included, based on their background and trigger events.

* * *

While T8: Retroversion will be my main Fic, Five others are on my list to work on at the moment: LATE Naruto: Life After the Ends; Uzumaki: A Lone Fox; The Thousand Ninja; Village Hidden in Plain Sight; and Wisdom of Chance. **Descriptions on profile**.


	2. Foxes Passing Messeges

**A Hokage, A Wife & Half a Nine tails**

* * *

 **Foxes Passing Messages**

 _For the Sake of Words_

* * *

 _~ Forenote ~_

Sorry about the Hiatus and the AN-Update, I intend to post two chapters on this fiction, for every chapter of the others in order to catch it up.

* * *

Previously

Naruto managed to defeat Neji through use of his Explosive clones and determination, and in the end, as Neji passed out, he gave a speech the impressed not only the Hokage, but the Fox as well. With the fox having healed his wounds and restored his chakra, Naruto welcomed cheers from the crowd when the Hokage announced to the public that Naruto was his first nomination for promotion.

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto woke with a start. He could feel the surge of power from the Fox's chakra passing through him.

He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep. Thinking back on it, it was in the middle of Sasuke's match there was no way he would have fallen asleep! Someone must have put him to sleep with a jutsu or something...

Had the fox been trying to wake him up? That would explain the surge of chakra from a second ago.

Making a mental note to thank the giant fuzzbutt, Naruto looked around. He was sitting in one of the competitors seats looking out over the arena. Next to him, Shikamaru lay passed out as well.

Everyone around him had also passed out.

Down in the arena, Sasuke's match had been interrupted. The other two sand genin had appeared between Sasuke and his opponent. Their sensei leapt down to meet the three of them.

On the other side of the arena the proctor guy almost casually joined the arguing group. Naruto watched as Sasuke followed the suna trio from the arena. Other shinobi began to clash all around the stands.

Motion further down in the stands told him that Sakura was awake too. Their sensei was fighting a bunch of foreign shinobi even further down. Super-bushy-brows-sensei was also fighting.

Suddenly, Sakura looked in his direction and began running towards him, a small dog followed her.

Turning to Shikamaru, Naruto grabbed the boy's ankle and gave it a sharp jab with his thumb. "Oi Shika, Wake up!"

"Gah! Naruto you jerk! Whadcha do that for!" The now awake genin grabbed his ankle.

"We gotta help, the village is being attacked!" Naruto explained as Sakura finally reached them. "Sasuke-teme just left without us! We're Gonna have to run hard to catch up!"

"Baka!" Sakura shouted and then flinched and in a quieter voice continued "This is no time to try playing hero! Sensei has—"

"Naruto how many clones can you make?" Shika's interruption sounded sincerely interested.

"Sakura-chaaan…" Naruto almost pouted before registering the other boy's word's. "I… I don't know. A lot?"

"We need as many as you can make last for awhile. They need to spread out and protect the civilians."

The image of Kakashi-sensei henging into one of his clones popped into his head.

"I don't know guys what if the enemy tries to henge into them?"

"Don't worry about that, if your clones see anyone attacking civilians they can take them out. And if that includes you own clones then it works as long as they don't attack anyone not attacking the civilians."

That explanation sounded good enough, so Naruto made all the clones he could in one massive burst and there were a lot of them. The entire stadium was covered in a smoke screen of his chakra… when it cleared, the enemy shinobi were nearly overwhelmbed by the sheer amount. Even Naruto had to wonder if maybe some of that was from the fox's chakra.

0o0o0

It was in fact part due to the fox. Since the moment the fox had woken his jailer, he had been pumping a small amount of his chakra directly into the seal. Instead of pushing through it the way he normally did, his chakra was now being filtered as the seal was designed to do, except at a much higher rate.

Not as high as just sending his chakra past the seal did, but even then the seal would steal a portion of his chakra that passed it in order to replenish Naruto's chakra supply

This way was much less noticeable. And Naruto's already vastly improved control would be able to handle the filtered chakra better.

That voice from within the seal itself seemed to be pleased at his decision.

0o0o0

With his clones everywhere Naruto slipped away to follow Sasuke. Sakura and shikamaru were in charge of his clones for now, it wasn't like he would need to make more right?

Heading off in the direction his teammate had, Naruto left the arena and pushed all his chakra into his speed. He didn't notice his sensei arriving where Shikamaru and Sakura waited with the dog.

He caught up to the Uchiha quickly. But not quick enough, as his teammate dodged various explosions all over the trees ahead of him. Finally landing upside down on a tree branch above, the Uchiha considered his options with an audible groan. "That was close."

With a grin Naruto made a few more clones and sent them out to trigger all the rest of the tripwires ahead of them. "Sasuke-teme, if we're gonna catch up to them we can't waste time on traps like these! I'll just set them off before we pass them got it?!"

Giving a small huff, the Uchiha dropped to another branch rightside up. "Sounds like it might work. But can you keep up?"

Naruto didn't even answer as his clones literally blurred from into motion. His teammate took a moment to blink and stare, then shook his head and followed. "When we catch up…" Sasuke began, but Naruto knew where he was going. "Yeah, I know. You want to fight that Gaara guy and finish your match, just leave the other two to me. I'll make sure they don't interrupt again."

The three suna genin came into view ahead of them, they seemed to have a short argument but it ended when the girl turned mid leap and swung her massive battle fan in an arc around her.

Almost all of the trees ahead of them collapsed.

Quickly doubling his troupe of clones the two leaf-nin used the constructs as stepping stones to climb over the falling shafts. Landing safely on a tree near the other side. Behind the kunoichi, Gaara and the cat suit guy continued to run.

She used another wind jutsu and Sasuke jumped out of the way. Following his teammate's lead, Naruto dodged it as well. Good thing he did, because the wind sliced right through the branch they were on.

As the two of them continued to dodge the winds sweeping in almost every direction Naruto thought over his last spar with ero-sennin. like he had in that spar, Naruto increased the angles he was leaping and began using clones as midair spring boards.

He was almost ready to spring directly down from above her when she dodged out of the way of a trio of kunai Sasuke had thrown.

The result was a shouted sandstorm jutsu.

The blast of wind that followed slowly built up sand on many of the tree branches around them. Naruto only knew this because one of his clones slipped on one and saw the sand before it burst.

Shouting a warning at Sasuke about the sand, Naruto created several more clones, positioning them all over the air above the blonde girl.

The Uchiha nodded and they both launched at the clones. After two leaps Sasuke used a fire jutsu that enveloped the girl only to be blown away, but before she could counter attack with kunai aimed for the dodging Uchiha, Naruto appeared behind her from below, having used her focus on the air and more specifically on Sasuke's jutsu to hide his crawling approach from the ground itself.

He sent his shoulder into her in a swift impact that slammed her into a tree trunk hard enough for the tree to give a loud crack! Her yelp of pain was the last sound she made as she crumpled to the ground.

Without a glance Sasuke had already returned to the chase. Naruto gave one last look to see that the girl was still breathing before he too raced away.

Behind them, a group of four including three genin and a dog had almost caught up.

0o0o0

Within the seal the Kyuubi continued to feed his chakra into the seal's filter. Said matrix adapted gradually to the willingness of the chakra and allowed even more to pass through. His jailer would soon be receiving chakra as fast as he was wasting it on all those clones.

Meanwhile, he could now almost clearly understand most of the words from the other Kyuubi. If he was right, and it actually _was_ his other half speaking to him.

It seemed the more he interacted with the brat, the most he could interact with the whispers. And now that he was able to understand most of them he was able to get out a couple details such as the other fox not being alone wherever it was.

0o0o0

Once more they caught up to the fleeing enemy. This time they landed in front of the guy.

"You through running away?" Sasuke challenged. Backing up his words Naruto offered his own challenge.

And was completely ignored.

"Who said I was running?," The cat suit guy replied. "I'll take both of you on right here, no problem."

Setting Gaara down beside him the suna-nin pulled the machine thing off his back and set it on the branch on his other side. "Okay Uchiha, time you—"

"Hey! You Bastard He's not your opponent! Quit ignoring me!" Naruto shouted in irritation.

"Naruto is in fact correct: as your true opponent is me." A calm voice echoed through the tree's. Behind the two Suna-nin, Shino landed on a canopy branch and leapt over the enemy shinobi to join the others blocking the path.

"Shino! What are you doing here!" Naruto gasped in surprise.

"How did you follow us?" Sasuke calmly asked his fellow.

Once agin Naruto was ignored as the closely garbed genin answered Sasuke's question. "I planted a beetle on you as you left the arena. A female beetle. She releases a scent that is too faint for a human to follow, but a male beetle can."

With a glance a Naruto's twitching face he continued. "I'm here to claim dibs on Kankuro. Much the same as I'm sure you Sasuke are here to face Gaara since your match was never finished. Mine however wasn't even started."

"Sasuke! Shino!" The voice was Sakura! She and that dog had come too. And behind them… Naruto looked twice, Shikamaru was _running_!

A groan from the form beside him brought kankuro's eyes down to his brother. He only had time to flinch as the boy's fist embedded itself in his gut.

Bending over in pain the older boy dropped from the branch. "Nuisance." Gaara spoke as he unsteadily stood.

Dropping to the ground, Shino moved in on his opponent. Taking a swing at him and only barely missing as the suna-nin rolled away.

Naruto leapt from his perch to join Shika behind the unmoving Gaara.

As he landed he noticed the Nara's elongated shadow had ensnared the redhead already.

"Aw man, I really didn't want to face this guy again." The slacker complained. Then in a slightly louder voice he called to Sasuke. "Be careful he can still move his sand even while in my shadow possession jutsu."

"You fought this guy before?" Naruto asked about the complaint.

"Not exactly." The other replied. "I was visiting Choji in the hospital and this guy shows up wanting to kill that Lee kid… you know, the one that fought him in the preliminaries."

Shikamaru shuddered. "His sand caught me off guard and when he attacked me with it I only escaped because his first miss knocked some stuff over and got the attention of Lee's sensei."

"And I told you then that I would kill you." Gaara spoke without looking in their direction… Not that he could, Shikamaru was focus intently on not letting him move.

"When I asked him what he was doing there he said he was there to kill Lee for no other reason than he wanted to. I didn't get it, but his explanation was worse. He said was a demon from birth who could only exist by killing others."

"A demon huh?" Naruto was thoughtful. He knew all too well what it was like to be called a demon. But too call himself one? "He can say he's a demon all he wants, but I got the real thing inside of me. If Sasuke can't beat him then I'll handle it."

"Hm. Is that so. My demon is as real as yours is." And so Gaara explained to the group about how his father had used a jutsu on him before he was born, resulting in the death of his mother.

Shikamaru admitted that this was a lot more than the boy had said in the hospital.

Naruto, on the other hand, heard a lot more than was being said. He understood what Gaara was telling him, the demon Shukaku… was that like the Kyuubi? The hatred in Gaara's voice echoed in Naruto's heart as he realized exactly how similar they were.

More than just in that they both held demons, but also in how the villagers treated them like a plague. Everything Gaara said told him they were they same, yet Gaara was so much different than he was.

Then Gaara spoke of his first assassin. Of how his own uncle had imparted to him the purpose he now holds.

That in killing others, he exists. That he would live only for himself and love only himself. And that by killing them all he would be proving that he was real.

It hit Naruto that he might have become like this if he didn't have people to protect him. If the old man had tried to have him killed off the way Gaara's own dad had...He might have ended up exactly like Gaara.

Naruto was shaking. It wasn't fear… It was remorse. An overwhelming need to help Gaara pressed in on him. But behind that he could almost hear it in his ears. His own demon was speaking to him. "That boy… he contains my brother, the Ichihbi. Be careful of him."

Was the fox actually worried about him? Mental note to really, really thank the fox, and to say sorry for being a jerk earlier.

"I understand." He began. "The pain of being alone, it eats at you. And living without a purpose is almost worse. But killing people is the wrong way to go about—"

Gaara didn't let him finish and simply attacked with sand. Shikamaru abandoned his jutsu and dodged out of the way. But this time he didn't just avoid the sand. He sent a kunai towards Gaara forcing the sand to block and covering the boy's view. In that moment he grabbed Sakura and fled behind a thick tree truck.

Naruto, didn't hide. The blonde focused his chakra and attacked. Kicking Gaara straight through the blocking sand, sending him off his own branch.

"I don't really care about any of your family history. Whatever you sand village clowns are plotting ends here." Sasuke announced. "Besides, I'm dying to see what kind of demon you really are."

His confident challenge brought a whimper from the other suna-nin as he stepped back from his stand off with Shino on the ground. He gave a nervous chuckle. "You shouldn't go asking for that kind of trouble man. You have no idea what you're facing!"

"You! I can tell when I look into your eyes, your purpose makes you strong, but mine is stronger. We may be the same but only in killing you will I be able to prove that I even exist!" As he spoke his voice became sharper, more like screams, the sand armor on his face cracked loudly and began to peel away. "You are my preeeey!"

"Shit!" was all Kankuro said as he turned and ran. Shino hesitated a moment before he followed.

With another shriek, a mass of blue veined sand exploded from his arm launching at the Uchiha.

Sasuke had no choice but to dodge and moved from branch to branch as he look on in fear at the single transformed eye that followed him.

"Quit running around. Are you afraid Uchiha, does my true form scare you?!" Gaara bellowed. Naruto landed behind the redhead and once more sand attempted to block him only to be shoved aside by the force of the punch, Gaara was once more knocked from his branch, this time falling all the way to the ground.

Where Sasuke was waiting with a kick aimed for the monster's gut. Sasuke and he hit the redhead in tandem, both of them kicking him one way and another each easily matching the speed that out paced Gaara's sand in the preliminaries. When the mutated boy tried to attack one of them, the other would strike. Then, giving up on catching them individually, he simply blasted sand in all directions.

Sasuke had managed to avoid it the sand by leaping into the canopy out of its range, and Shikamaru, Sakura and that tiny dog had moved behind a tree much farther away from the battle.

Naruto had instead tried to force all his chakra to his skin the way Neji had done.

It kinda worked.

His shirt and pants had been torn up, but oddly his new jacket was still in one piece.

Once they had their footing again they saw that Gaara had now grown a tail.

Using his newest skill, Naruto created explosions around all the redhead. Causing the boy to scream in pain as he was burned by the dark red flames.

"—was the most pathetic fire jutsu I've ever seen Naruto." Sasuke spoke as a familiar sound rose screeching out into the air. Sasuke attacked with his lightning jutsu. Thousands of tiny screams held in his fist as he drove his hand into the enemy sand.

Another louder scream rang out, and Sasuke smashed into a tree several meters away. "This! This is it! This is why I have been looking forward to facing you! This is why I have been so excited to fight you! No one has ever been able to wound me so badly! Killing you will show me what it truly feels like to be alive!" Gaara shouted in some twisted joy.

As he shouted the rest of his torso was covered in sand as it crept across his face and down his other arm. With his entire upper body now covered Gaara seemed to be moving three times faster.

He launched himself at the recovering Uchiha. Naruto's foot caught him in the face sending him bouncing back into the charred remains of the previous explosive jutsu.

An arm of sand flew at the blond but was simply side stepped as the orange blur that he had become moved in for the strike. The tail blocked his way before he got more than halfway to the redheaded sand monster.

Jumping back, Naruto made several clone who all charged at once. Gaara only had three offensive limbs like this, he couldn't guard all directions at once!

Instead a bunch of mouths opened all over his body and a blast of sandy wind tore the clones apart.

Without missing a beat, the original Naruto's fist slammed into the sand mass having retried that chakra skin thing from last time. This time it worked well enough that he was able to land a massive punch right to Gaara's face, sending the sand from stumbling back. Until it jump to avoid the hands that burst from the ground.

"Are you stupid? I could feel him digging through the ground before he even got deep enough to hide."

His explosions weren't strong enough to punch through the sand and he wasn't sure he could do more than single strikes himself without being caught, and none of his clones could reach the guy. Naruto had to find a way.

So creating three more clones he launched them into the air, straight for Gaara. As a result the sandy winds blasted up at them. However the clone's chakra skin seemed to be strong enough that two of them held out. Only to be snatched out of the air by a sand arm extended well past his clones blast range. Creating another two he handed one of his kunai off to one of them and they leapt over the two being held, one was caught by the other arm, and pulled the next over him and threw him at Gaara.

This would only work if he could get this clone close enough to the sand. He needed a fully formed explosive clone to reach the boy before the sand could destroy it.

Passing over Gaara, the clone landed on a tree branch behind him and dropped under the tail rolling his way under Gaara's back, "Straight from Kakashi-sensei's handbook, secret art of the hidden leaf! One thousand years of death!"

Almost everyone present felt overwhelming disappointment in Naruto when they saw what he had done.

The clone stabbed Gaara's butt with the kunai the original had given him. With all three limbs outstretched the sand around Gaara had thinned in order to push the clone away before it could explode. The blast cleaved Gaara's tail off and melted most of his back's armor as well, but it had been fully blocked.

Then the kunai exploded.

Naruto had rolled three tags onto it. Having seen the sand cover for his explosive clones he wasn't taking any chances. So he went with overkill.

It was inside Gaara's guard, and most of his armor remaining had been blasted by the clone. Gaara howled as he was propelled over the ground digging a trench as he came to a stop.

"It's… It's not possible!" Gaara growled from his position embedded into the ground. "Your purpose, all you want is to protect people. That's what you told the Hyuuga. There… There is no way I'm going to disappear to a purpose like thaaaaaaaaat!"

With his shout of rage, a massive tower of sand appeared nearly out of nowhere. A single tendril of the expanding tower smacked into Naruto sending him flying through one tree after another until he was caught by Sasuke.

"Naruto, can you move?" the Uchiha asked as he pulled them both to their feet. When Naruto nodded and stood on his own, his teammate continued. "You need to take Sakura and Shikamaru out of here. By force if you need to. I'll find a way to bring down that monster. I have another chidori in me. If I can just hit Gaara in all of that I can end this."

Naruto was about to retort when the Uchiha said the alternative. That he would fight until he died to give them time to escape.

Naruto's mind raced as he processed what the Uchiha had just said. And with the swell of emotion it caused, Naruto slapped his hands together and charged his chakra. He couldn't help the shout of thrill as he felt more chakra flowing through him than ever before. Sasuke flinched away from it as the ground around them began to break apart.

From their hidden tree, Shikamaru and Sakura both stared in horror at the sheer amount of _visible_ chakra flowing off the blonde.

The massive sand tower finally took form. It was a giant sand raccoon. So huge!

But Naruto was too empowered to feel the fear the rest of them found when seeing the beast. He created thousands of his explosive clones. They littered nearly every meter of every tree as far as they all could see. And they all launched themselves at the Sand monster. Once the beast had been nearly swarmed in orange, they exploded.

Sand was blown everywhere. And when it settled the mass that was left was crystallized by the sheer amount of flame and pressure. There was a loud crack. And a sheet of the glass fell from its place on the newly formed mountain. The bubbling sand beneath parted to allow Gaara to slid out, performing a jutsu as he emerged.

"I can't believe this...How could I be forced to use this against the likes of you!" Gaara muttered in disbelief. Then he slumped over.

A scream unlike any Gaara had let out thus far echoed through the forest as the sand around them all sucked inwards to the crystallized remains of the racoon. A large wave of it crashed down on the area the two genin had been standing in, but Sasuke managed to pull both of them out of the way.

"Naruto! You're out of chakra, you need to retreat!" The Uchiha growled as he leapt twice more to avoid them being caught.

"Iiiaaaayymmm Freeeheee!" The booming voice shouted with joy. At the same time there was a pulse of chakra and the sand demon began to reform faster than ever,

"Summon it!" The voice of the fox rang clearly in his mind. "I'll lend you my chakra, but you must summon the one who fought me!"

How do I even know which one that was? Naruto thought back.

"Just do it! Focus on the name Gamabunta! Use all the chakra I give you!"

Doing as instructed Naruto used the summoning jutsu. The result was an explosion of white puffy clouds as he felt himself instantly relocate many meters above where he had been. Sasuke Leapt from one tree to another as he moved from the giant toad trying to get a look at it's full size.

The toad looked one way then the other, slowly taking in the seen before him. "Hey you on my head, where is the guy who summoned me? Where is Jiraiya?"

"Um… the thing is, I'm the one who summoned you. I need help with—"

The massive toad began to laugh, "As if someone as puny as you could summon a toad as massive as me!"

"Hey knock it off GamaBaka! I'm in the middle of a battle and since I summoned you you have to help!"

"Now who do you think you are?!" Bellowed the toad "Ordering me, Gamabunta, the chief toad?! Just cause you summoned me— And I'm not saying I even believe you on that, it still doesn't mean I have to do anything. And furthermore why would I ever want to fight a guy like that!

The toad nodded his head indicating the nearly reformed racoon.

0o0o0

When he agreed to lend Naruto his chakra for the summons his other half told him of, the kyuubi was given two main pieces of information. The first was to make sure it was Gamabunta, the one he had fought. The second was what to tell the toad. "Hey kid, tell him he helped your dad last time and his enemy then was way stronger than this one. He didn't even stick around til the end of the battle."

This was the first time he clearly understood all of what had been said. It seemed that in this state of battle, the lines of communication had finally been forced open. He could hear his other self clearly as the dark fox relayed words from its current company.

0o0o0

Naruto wasn't sure why, but after the fox helped him summon the toad he might as well say it. In the back of his mind he resolved to ask what the fox meant about his dad and see if the fox might actually know his parents. "Come on, you helped my dad last time, and that guy was much stronger than this guy!"

His plea was loud enough that it carried out to the watching shinobi. Sasuke didn't get the implications at first but the other two did.

The toad stopped and his eyes slowly angled up towards the boy on his head. "Ah! You must be little Naruto then! Why the hell hasn't Jiraiya summoned me to meet you until now!"

"Well I kinda didn't know who it was I was summoning. Other than your name, I just summoned the biggest one I could! You're actually the first grown up toad I've ever summoned."

The toad's mood changed immediately. "Well, since it's the first time you've summoned anyone, and it looks like this is important, I'll help you out. But only because I owe your dad. After this you gotta pay tribute like everyone else!"

"Tribute!?"

"The youngins like snacks and sweets, but the adults prefer sake or for a few odd cases, they'll want exaotic foods…"

By this time the Shukaku had fully reformed and was watching with keen interest as it waited to be acknowledged. Besides, they had been kind enough to let him reform...it chuckled evilly.

"But I'm not old enough to drink yet!" Naruto protested.

"Ah, then we'll start a tab for ya. Better yet, we'll just add your bill to Jiraiya's tab and you can pay him back."

At this point the ichibi had waited long enough and bellowed. "Are you going to ignore me all day!" It sent one of it's arms out in a stabbing sweep.

Without seeming to even see it the giant toad leapt away.

"Fine! But I want to be told exactly how much I owe him from one of you before I make a payment! He's already tricked me out of all my savings at the ramen sta—Hey watch out, my comrades are over in that direction, so you need to keep clear of that area got it!?" Naruto point to where he was talking about and the toad agreed.

They two massive beasts exchanged a couple rounds of jutsu the sand demon launching air and the toad water, however neither of them seemed to be gaining an advantage.

"In order to break the jutsu allowing the Shukaku to be free like this you need to wake up the brat hanging there on his face. One good whack should do it. But we're not going to get a good shot unless I can get ahold of the Shukaku. And my body doesn't have claws or horns to dig into its body." The toad advised him.

"Your going to have to do the Henge. I would do it but I'm not very good at it. Just focus on claws and fangs and I'll keep us clear until the jutsu is complete then we attack."

"Got it, claws and fangs!" Naruto replied with determination. Forming his hand seals there was only one image that came to mind, and for some reason the fox's chakra began to fill him once more.

Once the smoke of the jutsu cleared there was a massive Nine tailed fox in front of the Sand demon, but more than its shape and size, it even held the melevelence of the kyuubi. The henge was so complete that the Ichibi hesitated. "Aniki?"

Using his shadow clone jutsu with what little he had in him Naruto formed a clone right in front of Gaara. And said clone swung his foot back and kicked the redhead square in the face. The force of the blow not only broke the genin's nose, but also ripped him from his sand and sent him into the air.

Beneath them, the Sand construct froze cracked and shattered until a wave of loose sand poured down from its form into a small hill.

Leaping from what was once again a toad, the real Naruto caught Gaara before they both hit the ground.

"How did you beat me? You weren't even protecting anyone! You can't be that strong." Gaara shook in shock as Naruto held him firmly still.

"You're wrong! I was protecting someone. Someone exactly like me who was treated wrong!" And so Naruto sat there telling Gaara how close he had been to being like him and why he protected those precious to him. How they saved him from the pain of being alone and how he would rather die than go back to that pain which was why he would fight to the death to save those precious to him. Gaara was also precious to him because he was an important sibling container who held his demon's brother.

As he finished his words, Sasuke finally made it to the sand dune. Gamabunta called his goodbye and Naruto return the farewell.

Shikamaru and Sakura arrived next. The pug informed them that Shino had beaten Kankuro, but once the massive sand demon was formed the boy had all but lost his will to fight. Temari had also appeared. She was beaten and hardly able to move, but she had walked right up to the leaf nin and begged them not to kill her youngest brother.

When Naruto announced, "you're all going to come back to the village and you won't be going back to the sand until I know Gaara will be treated right!" Not a single person laughed, or objected.

0o0o0

The 3rd Hokage had done what he could, he used that jutsu to consume _those_ two, but he didn't have the chakra to seal off Orochimaru. At least he got his arms. Sarutobi smiled as he felt himself being pulled into the seal as well.

The next generation was ready… he was going to see Biwako again.

The passage into the next world felt as if everything had gone numb. Even his eyes and tongue all he heard was white noise, all he saw was a field of chaotic greys in constant motion. Then it began to clear.

"Jiji! You awake yet?"

It sounded like Naruto, but it was too womanly.

He felt his shoulder getting shaken "Hey old man! What the hell happened? How did you and the other two Hokage get in here!?"

A sharp pain in his side where she probably punched his ribs.

"Answer me!"

"Kushina! He's an old man you don't kick old men for sleeping!"

Okay, so she kicked him…..Wait…

Hiruzen bolted upright, his eyes opened wide as he realized Kushina was dead!

But looking before him were both her and Minato! Oh kami! His failures would haunt him even in the afterlife.

"Hello-sensei, Minato smiled as he pulled Sarutobi up.

"Where are we?" He asked as he looked around. Most of their surroundings were a vast darkness

But in front of them was a glowing golden cage housing a battle to the death!

The kyuubi, only half it's original size, was trying viciously to eat the first and second Hokage's

Neither of them seemed able to perform jutsu so they were simply running around him.

"Well I guess we're in the belly of the death god." His successor replied with a shrug. "We have been here for years. We don't hunger or thirst. And we have no chakra. It doesn't matter how far you go there is nothing out there. But we can always find our way back to the seal."

Kushina took over for him saying "We once tried walking from it for as long as we could and lost track of time. By the time we got back Naruto had gone from being three to almost Ten."

The Hokage felt great relief from that. They hadn't witnessed the worst times of the boy's life…

"You know old man… you shouldn't get so relieved." She said. The smile on her face told him he was likely going to die again.

"I made up that story" Her fist arched back and came crashing toward him.

* * *

 _~ Note ~_

All four of the team sent to get them arrived because the nine pursuing shinobi had been preoccupied with the Naruto clones. With the original Naruto gone, Kakashi had Shino join the group.

These two changes allowed them to catch up faster than in cannon.

The reason Gaara flipped out and attacked Kankuro was because he hadn't been taken away by Temari this time. With her knocked out by Naruto, she never caught up. And the other four did.

Yes, Naruto now has the four Hokage and half a fox in his gut. The suna three will be staying in the leaf village for a while and Naruto is going to learn about his parents.

Sorry again for the Hiatus. As I get back into my writing my progress will grow. For more frequent progress reports and in depth discussion, Please Friend or follow me on FB. ~ Jordan Tesla Painsake.

* * *

While T8: Retroversion will be my main Fic, Five others are on my list to work on at the moment: LATE Naruto: Life After the Ends; Uzumaki: A Lone Fox; The Thousand Ninja; Village Hidden in Plain Sight; and Wisdom of Chance. **Descriptions on profile**.


	3. A New Mission!

**4 Hokages, A Wife & ½ A 9-Tails**

* * *

 **A New Mission!**

 _For the Sake of Leadership_

* * *

 _~ Forenote ~_

Sorry for the Hiatus… Excuses below.

* * *

Previously

The invasion has been stopped, Naruto having heard Gaara's story has decided to keep the boy safe from his own village. In the meantime actual words are now flowing between the two fox-halves.

* * *

It didn't take long to learn of the Hokage's battle once they returned to the village. They were quickly intercepted on their way back into the village. Shino, and Shikamaru's dads were the ones to lead them to a temporary debriefing station erected near a mobile first aid station.

The news that the old man had been killed hit Naruto like a blow to his soul. The news that the kazekage had been Orochimaru all along caused the three suna genin to ask for any other news on their father. The jonin debriefing them could only shake his head.

After they checked in, the three suna genin were going to be taken away for "assessment." But Naruto, not trusting the way the chunin looked at them, while still shaken from the news of the old man dying, and slightly leaking the kyuubi's chakra, ordered the shinobi who tried to take them, to leave them alone.

Surprisingly, the order was followed, even though the ones he had ordered were chunin.

And that was how the eight of them ended up being summoned to the Hokage tower by the Sanin himself. Both Sakura and Shikamaru were almost revering of him. With Shino on point, Sakura was eagerly awaiting the chance to meet him and walked briskly on the short trek. Even Shikamaru had quickened his pace. While not as excited, the lazy genin clearly didn't want to make the Sanin have to wait.

Both however, would pause every now and then to glance at Naruto. The blonde was unaware of their attention as he pointed out places to the suna three as if this were a tour. Sasuke followed along behind them all. His face was dark and focused. As if he expected another attack.

When they arrived, Shikamaru reported in, announcing that they had arrived. Both he and Sakura stood at attention more than Naruto had seen either of them do. The fact that Sasuke and Shino had as well wasn't really as noticeable to the boy. Even the Suna three had to cower.

Shino though, was silently irritable with the guy. It looked almost as if the boy wanted to simply leave.

And none of them could have expected Naruto to have known him or the way he would greet the guy…

With the term Ero-Senin.

Surprisingly the legendary shinobi simply overlooked the title and offered his comfort to the boy. Naruto had been extremely close to the Hokage it seemed.

His greetings however, finally confirmed to Shikamaru, that what Naruto said was truth. Naruto was in fact the son of the Yondaime.

With Jiraiya asking, Naruto finally allowed his three captives to be taken into village custody. But it wasn't until the Sanin gave Naruto a solemn vow on his right to summon, that Naruto agreed.

0o0o0

For what felt like his first week or so of his stay in the belly of the death god, the Third Hokage was being beaten and pummeled worse than any of the six present had ever seen.

Even the fox had began to wince.

Minato sat there watching as his wife literally tore him apart and shoved various limbs into various parts of his anatomy.

It would heal, Minato knew it would from the one time he ventured into the cage that held the fox.

Kushina could go in there as she pleased, but that one time he did had, had ended with him cut in half. A returned favor according to the fox.

It seemed though, that even she had began to tire from her exertions. They had discussed everything that the dark fox could glean from it's living half at length once it finally began to share. What they had learned was bad enough. What they suspected was worse. And now that the living fox was actively telling the dark one of his host's many burdens and traumas, Kushina would take a break, hear more and return to her tormenting of the elder hokage.

They now knew, everything that had been done to Naruto. All the fox could tell his other half was shared. The only oddity was a two week period in which even the fox's memories had been ripped out by an advanced sharingan user. This was not Kakashi's work. The dog masked anbu had never even tried to influence the fox's mind when he cleared Naruto nightmares away.

Beating on the Sandaime only got the answer that Danzo was involved, and had been the one to discover Naruto captor's and erased all evidence. Including the entire clan of the woman who led his kidnappers. Though that had its own reasons.

Through the beatings, the old sandaime didn't speak a word in his defense. However, the other two new residents sometimes spoke up. Minato was nonplussed to meet the shodaime when he and his brother stepped out from the bars imprisoning the great fox. The once heralded "God of the Shinobi." Hashirama Senju, first hokage of the leaf village. His brother Tobirama, was less a commotion.

When they appeared within the bars that kept the fox at bay the massive dark furred biju attacked, it wasn't hard for them to realize they could slip through the bars. This seal had been designed with holding a giant tailed beast in mind. So slipping out, the two of them simply greeted their new roommates. Watching as one of them relentlessly bludgeoned the man who sealed them in this realm.

Soon however Kushina took her first break and greeted her old master's husband as if she already knew him well. Mito Uzumaki, the woman who had trained her and passed the burden of the Kyuubi over to her, had spent many nights telling her stories of her late husband before she died.

Once they began discussing Mito, the dark fox relayed it's own memories. It was in these reminisings that the living Fox finally joined their conversations. And that led inevitably to Kushina walking back over towards the broken and still recovering elder. Her beatings began anew. Whenever the fox told something serious or even amusing, the vengeful redhead would return to the massive gate and listen for a while.

While she was away and he was healing the third looked over the space they were now trapped in. It was like a void. Blackness as far as one could sea. Even the ground was jet black so it was possible that there were walls or borders that they simply couldn't see…

On the other hand, each person in the void shown clearly as if they were in full daylight. There were no shadows cast, however each of them seemed to be the source of their own light. Yet, the two that had been here the longest were less lit than the three now joining them. It seemed as if their light had bled off over time. They weren't any dimmer or less visible as far as he could see. They were just less bright in a way he almost couldn't recognize.

And before them all stood a massive gate. The door to the cage that contained the dark fox. Looking around the gate, the Nidaime confirmed his thoughts. The gate and everything within it, were insubstantial. When one walked around the gate, they could go behind it as if there was nothing there, stepping out of the sight of the others and finding only bars with nothing behind them on the other side.

It seemed the Gate was a single set of bars in a line. From one side they could see the fox and pass into the cage, from the other they saw the bars in front of an empty void. Finding the curiosity amusing, the dark fox whipped one of it's tails around the gate from his side of the bars, and the Nidaime was able to see it from the rear view of the gate.

"Those two spent weeks trying to figure out the mechanics of this cage. Even it's purpose eludes us." The fox spoke.

"I assume what you see is the same as what we have? A set of Massive golden bars in a line with no ceiling or floor, seeming to go into the darkness we stand on, and almost visible continuing downward?"

"Yes." The Kyuubi answered "However they stop going upwards, I have reached over them and I can pass over the bars the same as going around."

"We tried as much as well senpai." Minato offered. "Although we can't seem to go directly above them, we are able to pass over them." The tops of the bars appeared to simply vanish into the voided black. Leaping over them the Nidaime was certain they connected to some darkness that covered their tops.

As if they were capped in the darkness and continued forever up into said dark even without extending and higher from within.

0o0o0

For an entire week Naruto had nothing to do while he waited as Gaara and his siblings were being questioned. He created as many clones as he could, to have them go out and help with repairs and such, but was told that his original could remain with the trio, or in the hall at least.

But though he was determined to remain with his captive acquaintances, the hallway was boring! And so he sent a clone to collect a few leaves for him to train his fire conversion.

Ero-sanin had told him that the more of it he could burn, the hotter his fire jutsu would get. So while he had nothing else to do, he worked on it. He worked on it to the point of exclusion of everything else.

He had tried taking them to see the old man, and when they were brought to the debriefing station found out that the hokage had died fighting Orochimaru. The Sanin hearing them out worked just as much though. The ache in his chest as he thought of the old man had kept him from sleeping since the battle. So he just kept working on his chakra conversion.

It hurt.

The man who had protected him for becoming what Gaara had, who would visit him on his birthday, and always made sure he was eating right, and he was the one who got him the appartment and made sure he could attend the academy and...and... and...

So Naruto focused, blinking away tears as he fiercely combusted his chakra.

He vaguely heard Sakura talking to Sasuke somewhere, and also he thought he heard the fox talking to someone too, but his mind remained on the leaf, and the two straps of his chakra rubbing together, building heat and creating flame. Food was brought to him by his clones, and for some reason they looked worried about something… How long had his clones been around anyway? He hadn't made any more of them…

Oh well, they were bringing him food so it didn't matter. He continued to mold his flames.

By the time the three suna siblings were released into a single holding cells, Naruto was able to burn the whole leaf in about four minutes. Jiraiya had done it in seconds.

Shaking himself, Naruto realized he had no idea how long he had been there, And with that he realized he needed a bathroom badly!

Once he had relieved himself, he was escorted with the others to where the suna three would be staying. At that point, he was informed that he had sat there working on leaf after leaf for the better part of six days! His clones had swept up the burnt leaves and kept him fed but he hadn't moved from the spot!

Only a few of the couple hundred clones he had created even dispersed in that time, and they were eating for free as they had done nearly twice as much work as the same number of other people in the same amount of time. And more so since they didn't stop to sleep. It seemed his clones were augmenting their movements with chakra and simply refreshing themselves with chakra instead of sleeping. Some of them also seemed to have become driven the way Naruto had been.

The fact that they ate twice a day seemed to provide them more chakra so they could continue existing.

At the same time, in his state of focus, Sasuke and Sakura as well as some of the other rookies had come to see him and hadn't been able to get him to respond. The only person other than his clones that he had even acknowledged had been Ayame when she brought him some ramen.

They even had a medic check him over! The result was that they were all worried about him and none of them knew what he was doing. Ero-sannin however had simply told them that Naruto would move when he was ready, but if he pissed in the hall he would _be moved._ Fortunately he seemed to have held it in the entire time.

Asking the others how they had been during that time was a good way to change the subject. They had been treated fairly and would only remain in the holding cells until the new hokage was selected, then they would be granted a hotel room and held as negotiation leverage.

Kankuro had to explain how that worked to Naruto.

But once he understood, Naruto grinned. "Don't worry. It won't take long for them to pick a new Hokage!"

"Glad you have so much faith in the village kid." It was the pervert. "As it happens we already picked one. We just need to go get her. And by _we_ , I mean you're coming with me."

He also handed him his chunin vest. "The Hokage announced he was going to recommend you publicly." He shrugged here. Spreading his arms as he explained. "That was all I needed to make the council agree."

Once Naruto calmed down from the information he had made chunin, the man continued.

"They wanted me to take your whole team but that would have been a hassle, and since they also decided to promote the Nara, I went ahead and asked if he wanted to come along instead the other two. He agreed when I told him it would get him out of the reconstruction and save me from having to babysit anyone else.."

He didn't mention that now that Naruto was a chunin, the selected Hokage would be able to tell him who his parents were. After a few details about where to meet him and Shika, Naruto ran to his apartment to get ready for the trip.

Turning to the three in the cell, the Sanin sighed... "I'm sorry to say, but you won't get to experience the hospitality of this fine holding cell. We will need the room, and besides, the new Hokage has been picked right? Wasn't that what you were told?"

Understanding what he meant, the three gathered their things they had only recently set down and headed out to be escorted to a secured hotel.

0o0o0

Sakura stood behind Sasuke listening to him demanding more training. It had been only two days since Naruto left on his mission and the results of the exam had finally been released.

Naruto-Baka and Shikamaru had both been promoted. Sakura had to admit Naruto's match against Neji was amazing enough. The moment the Third announced his nomination, the promotion was all but his.

Still, the battle with Gaara was what had to have cinched it. Shikamaru had pulled her aside and spoke with her about what they overheard. She had figured out who the last person to summon the great toad boss was, and when that specific summons was.

Inso she now knew exactly who his dad was.

But the Nara had been certain if she spoke of it, Ino's dad would wipe her mind. Regardless of the threat, the boy himself was convincing in reasons to keep her mouth shut. Namely Naruto didn't seem to know who his parents were. So either it was kept secret from him and he only knew about the toad's relationship to an unknown parent, which meant it was classified, or it was sooo secret that even the dobe would keep his mouth shut about it and hadn't slipped up even once that she knew of, which meant it was doubly classified. Either way, and given what it was, her just knowing of it could be considered a crime!

She didn't know if Sasuke had figured it out, but she watched him a lot anyway, just in case, you know, if he show any sign of it... so she would know if he knew... yeah.

She had been worried when Naruto went catatonic. But he came out of it okay. On the other hand, his fire manipulation was improving at a rate Kaka-sensei had been impressed with. Sasuke only needed a minute or two to completely burn a leaf with the manipulation Naruto was using. And sensei had told him he was a lightning type. Then hearing from the Jonin that fire wasn't Naruto's main type either, Sasuke was feeling threatened.

To be honest with herself, she had to admit Naruto _needed_ to be a chunin. Not only for his massive chakra reserves and those exploding clones, but also because it meant he could officially learn of his heritage. But Sasuke only saw this as one thing.

Naruto had surpassed him.

He had long since passed her. But she had accepted it, because she was sure she would keep up. Now though, she realized she was the weakest of the three. So standing behind Sasuke as always, she supported his plea for more training.

No!

She was ready to stop following them! Naruto had made chunin. And she was nowhere near Sasuke. "Sensei, Sasuke is right! You haven't trained us at all! You taught us how to tree walk and that's it! I had that down in a minute! You didn't even stay to watch Sasuke-kun and Naruto finish. If you won't train us then at least point us in the direction of someone who will!"

Both the guys had stopped arguing...er, Sasuke had stopped arguing and sensei had stopped teasing him...and they were now looking at her as if they had forgotten she was even there.

"Fine..." the jonin drawled. "Look, Neji is beat up pretty badly from his match and his involvement in the defense after, and Lee… well Tenten might be able to help… I'll hire her to give you some pointers. It might help Gai to get out of the hospital for a little bit as well. I hear he's starting to creep out the staff there, hovering over Lee as much as he does."

And that was how the week of hell came to be.

Their Sensei had filled out a d-rank and hired Tenten to help train them... Tenten then invited them to meet her at the hospital where they met the Green-eyebrow-freak and his mini. Having heard of the mission Gai had decided to take over. He was going to train them full throttle.

So following him, Tenten, and a wheelchair bound Lee out of the hospital, they left Sasuke behind with the bedridden Neji.

They worked with Sakura on her taijutsu. Gai explained that even from his the chair, Lee could watch and correct her, not that she had much wrong, but she seemed to hold back at some points and over extend at others. Lee told her about each of these points as she repeated every stance and motion of her taijutsu that she knew. Then he coached her on physical training. Tenten didn't so much as say a word to her but offered herself as a sparing opponent on motions that required a second body to move or manipulate.

Meanwhile...

Neji, who not allowed out of bedrest due to chakra exhaustion and torn muscles from fighting a sound nin who attacked the medical station, worked with Sasuke on his chakra control. The two of them began with a staring contest with was broken when Sasuke realized Neji was doing more than staring. The boy was using his eyes to look at Sasuke's chakra!

Once he realized this Neji must of noticed and spoke. "Uchiha, I have been instructed to assist you in chakra manipulations. As I have very little chakra at the moment you will have to follow my directions without demonstration of the exercises. Are you willing to put forth the effort?"

A scoff was all the reply he received and the Hyuuga guided him through several minor exercises.

After an hour of this, Neji requested a nurse to help relocate him to the Hospital baths. Most rooms had a private bath, however the hospital also had a larger room for soaking entire bodies... these were usually used with ice cold water to help bring down fevers, however today the one the used had hot water.

While Neji soaked, he taught Sasuke to water walk.

0o0o0

The day after that Sakura was training with Neji and Sasuke was working on his wires and tool use with Tenten.

Neji was greatly impressed at her aptitude for chakra control and how she easily figure out and even improved on most of the minor exercises he taught her, the fact that she could water walk with only a minor refocusing of her chakra which took about two minutes with one foot to complete dropped his jaw.

And so he determined to see how far he could push her control. Explaining to her the exact process of augmenting ones movements with chakra and having her attempt to go over all of her taijutsu using the augmentation afterwards.

She easily got the concept and application of it down, however her diminished capacity left her dry before she had gone a third of the way through her kata.

Meanwhile...

Sasuke was retaught everything he thought he knew about taking care of his tools. Not much was different, However Tenten had insisted and her sensei had enforced the objective. As an added benefit, she had been right. He learned two new knots and a couple reasons not to use one of the wire knots he commonly used. He also learned how to alter the projectile's curve with the passage of another projectile without the two touching, the air current trailing the second causing the shift in the first.

With that Sasuke decided to accept that it was worth redoing everything he already knew. But she also got him started on using sealing scrolls and explosive notes in his tool use, including how to roll a note into a senbon. Explosive needles could be very useful. When the day ended Sasuke now sported two wristbands that held various tools sealed into them under his arm sleeves.

After that, Gai worked with Sasuke on his taijutsu while Sakura underwent Tenten's retraining. It took Sakura a little longer than Sasuke because she hadn't known everything about the angled projectiles and ricochet maneuvers he had. But she managed to learn it all by the end of the day, and decided to only place her sealed tools on one arm instead of both. Her wire usage wasn't anywhere as good as Sasuke's was but she knew how it was done now and could only improve more through daily training.

On the fourth day, She was expected to spar with Sasuke. Both Lee and Neji had been wheeled out to the courtyard to watch their spar.

At first she was against it, thinking that she wouldn't be able to keep up, and even then she didn't want to inflict damage, but when Sasuke told her that if she couldn't at least draw his blood he would be disappointed, she swallowed her reservations and stepped forward. Then Sasuke tied a cloth around his head, completely covering his eyes!

As it turned out he had been anticipating this since yesterday when he was told to try blind fighting.

Gai-Sensei briefly explained to her as well how the sharingan could predict movements and follow the flow of chakra, which allowed it to not only copy Nin and Tai-jutsu but also to see through genjutsu and better cast them as well. He had learned all of this through Kakashi-sensei.

Understanding that this fight was meant to keep him from relying too much on one sense, Sakura agreed. She started out slow and managed a few good combinations. But Sasuke was quick and was able to guess where she would strike even before she made the sounds of motion. That was when Neji interjected that she should try attacking as her other teammate did. The blonde who fought him in the exam and been hard to predict. His mix of flowing and balanced taijutsu with sloppy and almost stupid motions threw the boy off any predictable path.

With that in mind Sakura tried very hard to plan something Sasuke wouldn't expect.

By the end of the spar Sasuke's blindfold had been removed and both of them had began using their augmented speed. While physically Sakura couldn't keep up with Sasuke, he chakra control allowed her to move close to the same speed and also shift her momentum at a breaths notice. She had caught him off guard several times by stopping her inertia dead or even reversing it mid-attack or dodge. At the same time Sasuke over extended twice, and lost his balance to the chakra enhanced motion his body was trying to compensate for.

When the fight was over, Gai told them that would be that last day they trained. Neji would be discharged the next day and he wanted to take them all for some out of village R&R. With that said Sasuke told her he was going to find their sensei.

Before she could follow him Gai pulled her to the side and spoke quietly to her. "Neji told me of your talent for control. I would like to know how you feel about genjutsu or iryojutsu? Either skill would be highly useful on missions. And both avenues require a high degree of control. You could be a great medic, or you could find yourself able to manipulate the enemies minds as you wish."

After discussing the two career choices, Gai gave her the contact information for a couple shinobi. The first was team eight's sensei. The other was Kenko-san, the head nurse in the hospital. Both were easily found and known to the majority of shinobi. But with the contact information Gai had included a personal recommendation.

With that the green clad jonin departed. And Sakura realized her teammate was already long gone.

That was How Sakura found herself looking for the sensei of team eight the next day. Hoping to begin using Genjutsu as soon as she could find the woman. She had been told this morning that Sasuke would be leaving the village with Kaka-sensei for a few days in order to learn how to copy jutsu in battle. His new control had fully developed his sharingan. And since Gai told Kakashi of his recommendations the lazy Jonin told her where Asuma and Kurenai usually hung out when their team meetings were over.

So the pinkette walked the village alone in her search for the mistress of genjutsu. She had only just located the woman when the Jonin couple confronted two cloaked ninja.

One of them was tall and blue.. ieck.

The other… the other looked like Sasuke! But older…

* * *

 _~ Note ~_

I Know this chapter is short. And sadly this is the best I can do for now. I think from now on, this story, along with both WoC. Will have condensed chapters as they are both on low priority.

Sorry for the Hiatus, And this publishing is not a full return. In short, over the last two years I have caught my ex cheating, gotten divorced, found out my ex opened nine cards in my name and maxed them out, lost my job, lost a family member, and I'm currently going bankrupt and losing my house.

I hope that when I have moved and found a new job I will be settled in enough to return in full. For now, I will work on anything that moves me at the time and if I manage to finish a chapter I'll post it when I can.

* * *

While T8: Retroversion will be my main Fic, Five others are on my list to work on at the moment: LATE Naruto: Life After the Ends; Uzumaki: A Lone Fox; The Thousand Ninja; Village Hidden in Plain Sight; and Wisdom of Chance. **Descriptions on profile**.


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